Friday, December 14, 2007

eyes cracked... for a dual boot configuration

7 hours of tests and quests. If you ever want to make a dual boot configuration avoid doing what I did as much as possible... that is installing Windows XP after Windows Vista was installed. It might be better to install first the XP and Vista after. I didn't try that.
After I installed XP my computer couldn't boot Vista anymore. After I got Vista back to life the XP was dead.
Anyway if you ever do my mistake(which wasn't realy a mistake because I bought my laptop with Vista... but now I want to be able to use an application that requires XP) here is a solution:
Open a command prompt and write these commands there (but before you write them put your Vista DVD in):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All <--- E is the DVD drive from my laptop, you should replace it with yours if it ain't the same

C:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "WINDOWS XP" <--- C is the drive where my Vista was installed. Replace it with yours. You can write whatever you want instead of WINDOWS XP

C:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=D: <------D is the drive where my Windows XP was installed. Replace it with yours.

C:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
C:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, the source where I found this solution said that it shoul work after this. If both OS work then you don't have to read further. In my case one didn't work. I don't know what happened. When I restarted the computer I was able to chose and load Vista. I restarted again to check on XP. I chose an"earlier version of windows" and got an error concearning NTLDR . It said that the file was missing or corrupt, and I couldn't load XP anymore. Later I found the solution to this:
In Windows Vista run the command prompt as an administrator.
Type:
bcdedit /enum active
and press Enter. You should see "Windows Legacy OS Loader" somewhere at the end of the lyst
there's an identifier called {ntldr} ... it's the one taht you've been working with earlier. Now under the identifier is the device... if what is written next to the device (on the same line cause it is more like a property) is anything else but "boot" then you should make it "boot". You do that like this:
bcdedit /set {ntldr} device boot

you should check if everything is the way you want it by writing again the command
bcdedit /enum active

now you should be able to run both OS... if you're not... sorry... that's all I know;
else, you're welcome!

No comments: